Chapter 13 - DEREK’S NAME WAS ON THE CONTRACT
The police wanted a list of everyone who had entered my house during the previous six months.
I gave them forty-three names.
Contractors.
Babysitters.
Friends.
Vance Capital employees.
Derek.
Evelyn.
Martin.
Claire.
The plumber.
The woman who repaired the refrigerator.
Two electricians.
Three cleaners.
A birthday entertainer dressed as a purple dragon.
Claire stared at the list.
“I refuse to believe the dragon is involved.”
“I’m keeping an open mind.”
Humor helped for approximately four seconds.
Then Detective Lena Morales asked whether Derek still had a key.
“No.”
“Ever?”
“He had the emergency code during overnight parenting transitions.”
“Could he enter without you knowing?”
My spine stiffened.
“No.”
Derek arrived twenty minutes later because the police had requested an interview.
He looked at the camera on the evidence table.
Then at me.
“You think I did this.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to.”
Detective Morales interrupted.
“Mr. Whitmore, when was the last time you entered Ms. Vance’s residence while she wasn’t home?”
“Never.”
“Do you know her alarm code?”
“Old code, yes. Current code, no.”
“Did you install this?”
“No.”
“Do you know anyone who would want surveillance inside her house?”
Derek looked at me.
“Unfortunately, that list has gotten longer.”
Later, after police left, he remained on the porch.
“I found something else.”
I didn’t invite him inside.
“What?”
He handed me a folder.
The document inside was eleven years old.
MERIDIAN ACQUISITION PARTNERS — CONSULTING AGREEMENT.
At the bottom was Derek’s signature.
I looked at him.
“You worked for Veronica?”
“No.”
“Your signature says otherwise.”
“It isn’t mine.”
I laughed without humor.
“We’ve done this before.”
His face tightened.
“I know.”
“Forgery. Missing documents. People claiming they didn’t understand what they signed. Forgive me if this particular genre has become exhausting.”
“I didn’t sign it.”
I studied him.
Two years earlier, Derek would have raised his voice.
Blamed me.
Blamed Dad.
Blamed the weather.
Now he stood quietly.
“I don’t expect you to believe me because I’m saying it,” he said. “Have Naomi verify it.”
That stopped me.
“Where did you get it?”
“My brokerage received a package.”
“Anonymous?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Yesterday.”
“You waited until now?”
“I wanted to verify whether Meridian was connected to the parcel purchases.”
“So you investigated alone.”
“That was stupid.”
“Yes.”
“I know.”
That irritated me more because he had learned how to admit things.
He looked toward the living room window.
Maisie pressed her face against the glass.
“Daddy!”
His entire expression changed.
I hated how complicated people were.
It would have been easier if Derek had remained entirely terrible.
Instead he had become a man capable of being both the person who destroyed our marriage and the father who never missed pickup.
He waved.
Maisie waved back.
Then he lowered his voice.
“There’s another signature.”
He opened the folder.
Evelyn Whitmore.
My eyes lifted.
“She signed?”
“Yes.”
“Maybe she remembers.”
“She says she doesn’t.”
“You asked her?”
“This morning.”
“And?”
Derek hesitated.
“She started crying.”
Evelyn crying was rare enough to qualify as weather.
“Why?”
“She said Veronica told her the agreement would protect Whitmore Development if Samuel ever withdrew financing.”
“And you?”
“She told me I signed it.”
“But you say you didn’t.”
“Yes.”
I examined the page.
The date was eleven years earlier.
Six months before Derek and I met.
That made no sense.
“You didn’t even know me.”
“I know.”
I looked at his signature again.
Then saw the typed line beneath it.
DEREK A. WHITMORE, EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT.
Derek had not become executive vice president until three years later.
I looked at him.
He had seen it too.
“The title is wrong.”
“Yes.”
Someone had created the contract later.
Then backdated it.
And they wanted us to find it.
The question was why.
My phone buzzed.
A message from an unknown number.
STOP DIGGING INTO HARBOR POINT.
A second message appeared.
NEXT TIME THE SCHOOL CODE WON’T SAVE HER.
Derek read it over my shoulder.
His face went completely still.
For the first time since our divorce, he reached for me.
Not romantically.
Not possessively.
May you like
He simply took the phone from my shaking hand and said, very quietly:
“Nobody is going near our daughter.”
